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Crime/Mystery
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Crow Stone
Jenni Mills
Some months it is very difficult to find books for this website that meet my criteria: a page turner that hooks you in from word one and then opens out into a gripping plot with pace, articulate and complex characters, wit, tension and a great ending – but not this month. Crowe Stone has all this and more and I recommend you pre-order this gripping psychological thriller from your bookseller now, so you will one of the first to read it when it comes out.
Jenni Mills has constructed an intriguing and multi-layered story built around Kit, a mining engineer, who finds herself back in the Bath she left as a teenager, whisked away in a black car in mysterious circumstances. Back then she was Katie, growing up with an unpredictable father, searching for her mother, making friends, falling in love, buying clothes, studying, partying and generally have a difficult time.
Now she is back, unwillingly and with a gloriously gay archaeology professor in tow, to shore up the unstable mines around her old home. He is in on the trail of the temple of a secretive pre-Christian sect somewhere under the city. She just wants to get the job done, bury the past and leave - but someone is watching in the shadows and will use her past and her present to threaten her life and her sanity.
Effortlessly moving between the 1970s and the present day, this is a story told with a lightness of touch and great comic moments which belie its eventual dark and disturbing revelations.
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No Way to Treat a First Lady
Christopher Buckley
West Wing meets Christopher Brookmyre. President MacMann is
discovered dead in bed clubbed to death by the Paul Revere
spittoon; the First Lady is arrested and turns to Boyce
“Shameless” Baylor for her defence, despite the fact that she
dumped him at college to marry Ken MacMann. This biting
political satire doubles as a clever legal thriller and is
perfect mix of political humour and superb courtroom drama. It
is also very, very funny and I defy you not to laugh out loud at
least once on every page.
Christopher Buckley has been editor-in-chief of Forbes FYI since
its launch has won Thurber Prize for American Humour as well as
being presented with the Washington Irving Medal for Literary
Excellence. He spent two years at the White House as a speech
writer.
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The Voice of the Violin
Andrea Camilleri
If you read one novel this year it should be something by
Andrea Camilleri. The Voice of the Violin was the first one I
read but I recommend you start with The Shape of Water and read
them all as I am now doing. Camilleri’s stories are based in
Sicily and, while his central character Inspector Montalbano
unravels intriguing murder mysteries, he brings you the sights
and sound, tastes and smells of this fascinating island.
The plot focuses on the murder of a young woman and the
Inspector works his way through an intriguing list of suspects,
via several gastronomic experiences to a very satisfying
dénouement. The supporting cast is excellent; Constable
Catarella is a comic masterpiece. But this is much more than
your average detective novel; the characters have depth and
weight, the setting is beautifully brought to life and plays its
part in the story; Montalbano’s character is so well developed
that it drives the narrative at the same time as it draws you in
to the complexities of his personal and professional life. |
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The
Big Jessie
Zane Radcliffe
Rock journalist Jay Black used to be Belfast’s leading exposé writer. Earlier still he was “Big Jessie” – bullied for being fat, pale and ginger. A hazing involving a wet suit and a truly disgusting way to warm it up cements a friendship with Carmel McCaffrey and a pledge to make the bullies suffer.
Now after one exposé too far he has settled for life in Belfast’s best flat with photographer mate Diggsy and his webcam installation “Orange Disorder”. That is until he drags Diggsy with him to photographer the Harlots and falls head-over-heels for the lead singer Scarlet. So he leaps at the chance to join them on a trip to Dublin for a gig but before he can leave his past catches up with him and he is drawn into a plan to discredit the leader of the Sinn Fein, Martin O’Hanlon. The trip is on though and maybe he can kill two birds with one stone: get the information he needs on O’Hanlon and get closer to Scarlet. That is until they are fired on near the border and people start to die.
This is a masterful piece of comic thriller writing, hooking you in from the first page with a cleverly constructed and tightly complex plot, great one-liners, great pace and energy. The story twist and turns from North to South, great characters dodge snipers bullets and escape drowning and car wrecks and the whole thing is spiced with murder, blackmail, corruption and illegitimate children.
2003 |
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Mission Flats
William Landay
CWA John Creasey Award for Best Crime Novel – literate,
totally absorbing, twisting plotting leads to an unguessable
ending.
2005 |
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The
Sacred Art of Stealing
Christopher Brookmyre
No apologies for a second Brookmyre triumph.
Be careful where you read this – you’ll get funny
looks if you burst out laughing on the train! And you will burst
out laughing.
If you love heist movies, this is for you. Enjoy an intriguing
“hit” in Mexico and then over to Scotland to join
Messrs Jarry, Dali, Chagall, Ionesco and Athena in the funniest
bank robbery you’ll ever read. Then sit back and watch the
heist develop with truly 3-dimensional characters, a plot with
more twists than a twisty thing, great locations, wit, cunning
and a great resolution. I’m just off to read it again!
2003 |
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Shutter
Island
Dennis Lehane
Summer,
1954. US Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner Chuck Aule
are on the boat heading for Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally
Insane on Shutter Island to find an escaped murderess named Rachel
Solando. How difficult could that be on an island with no way
off?
Very - if you’re in a race against time as a hurricane approaches,
when you discover she escaped barefoot from a locked room, hear
rumours of drug experimentation, brainwashing and surgical trials
in mysterious Ward C and discover a lighthouse surrounded by barbed
wire and armed guards. The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth,
the more they start to believe that they will never be allowed
to leave Shutter Island.
This is a superb multi-layered mystery that will keep you guessing
until the last page as Dennis Lehane spins a web of deceit around
you in a page turner with a cracking pace.
2004 |
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Country
of the Blind
Christopher Brookmyre
After a stunning first chapter
which reduces you to tears of laughter [pure Billy Connelly]
then flips you into serious reflection on the politics of hatred,
you’d think this ‘tartan noir’ thriller couldn’t
get better but it does.
As honest thieves are caught up in
a deadly conspiracy, violence and tension are finely balanced
with achingly funny dialogue and brilliant one liners. Cleverly
drawn characters race through an intricately constructed plot
which will surprise and shock you on every page. And if you
don’t remember ’96, don’t worry; the sharp
political satire is just as relevant in ’05 – in
fact nothing seems to have changed. You’ll see. You’ll
love it!
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Thriller
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The Burglar Diaries
Danny KingAmoral, chauvinistic, crude, rude and totally compelling.
If liberal usage of the “f” word or “c” word offends you, read no further; and if you’ve ever been burgled, I’m not sure you will get into the spirit of the thing.
If none of the above puts you off, you’re in for a treat. Bex, the burglar of the title, has been a moderately successful burglar but now has a story to tell, and he tells it as it is, including all his f***-ups and lots of other people’s c***-ups. If you can put your moral indignation on hold, you will cheer at narrow escapes and laugh out loud at razor sharp wit and great anecdotes. The prison tea schedule is a classic. From the moment you meet Bex and his mate Ollie on a job that goes disastrously wrong because there is no bog paper in the loo, the plot unwinds cleverly towards a finale where doing the wrong thing might just turn out to be the right thing.
[Read the first chapter with Amazon’s Search InsideTM.]
The Burglar Diaries may have four Fs, three Cs and a couple of wankers on each page but it is also a carefully crafted and truly witty read. But there are no messages in this book other than locking all your doors and windows before going out really does work!
2001 |
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The
London Irish
A rattling good yarn with quirky characters, pithy humour and a bagful of bizarre twists...this is someone who can tell a story
London Irish is the blackest of comedies, blacker than the pint of Guinness that graces its cover and every bit as enjoyable! It's the story of Bic (his 'pen name'!) who runs a crepe stall in Greenwich as Britain prepares to celebrate the new millennium. But just as Bic decides to cut loose from the city and return to his homeland to start an ostrich farm, he meets Roisin and his world is turned upside down. From this point just try and put the book down. I couldn't. It's fast-paced and furious but always funny. And Bic's dog (Dunc, so named because Bic had rescued him from the Thames when someone had tried to drown the puppy!) is one of the finest comedy canine creations!
Slainte.
A word of warning, in the light of the 7/7 London Bombings: even though the levity is high, London Irish contains one of the most poignant expressions of a terrorist atrocity that you're likely to read.
2002 |
Fantasy/SF
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The Malice Box
Martin Langfield
A rattling good adventure sweeping you through Manhattan on a quest to retrieve 7 keys before they unlock a device which will destroy the world. Classic good versus evil stuff: an unwitting hero asked to step up and follow the Path to help the guardians of the Perfect Light defeat the Brotherhood of Inwn.
Robert Reckliss is an English journo in New York, whose strange and compulsive pastime is collecting scale models of NY buildings. This obsession sets the scene for a tale which uses the architecture and history of New York to drive a fascinating hunt against the clock. But the story has roots in his Cambridge days where he was drawn into the scavenger hunt games of the Unicorn Club by its enigmatic leader who twenty years on sends him a “Boîte à Malice” the Malice Box with the plea “Help me! Time is running out!” along with a cryptic puzzle to launch him on the first of seven trials to challenge him over the next 7 days.
Each trial is accompanied by fascinating puzzles for the reader to solve along with the hero - although he gets the help of the guardians. There is lots of stuff to interest and intrigue: science from Isaac Newton to the Manhattan Project, alchemy and metaphysics, religion and mysticism, all cleverly interwoven in a story where the hero has to find the power of the Light within him before he can defeat the dark powers of the Brotherhood.
And forget Paris and the da Vinci Code, a lot of people will be taking this book on a trip to Manhattan to follow the Path for themselves!
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The Traveller
John Twelve Hawks
The ‘Da Vinci Code’ meets ‘The Matrix’; classic fantasy
with a very modern take on the end of privacy. The Brethren are
watching – can the Travellers stop them?
2005 |
Biography/Autobiography
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Untold Stories: The Stories Pt. 1
Alan Bennett Audio CD
Buy it for yourself: listen to the first CD in the car as you are driving off on Christmas morning for lunch with the parents and then listen to the second on the way back; you will cry with laughter as Alan Bennett’s soft Yorkshire accent draws you a flawless account of family life.
2005 |
Contemporary Fiction
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The Lover’s Room
Steven Carroll
I came away from the recent London Book Fair with three books written by Australian authors; two were complete stinkers and are winging their way to charity shops but the nice people from Mira let me have a copy of The Lover’s Room. This is glorious book which I will keep on the shelf to reread because, as well as being an intriguing story beautifully told, it is it has hidden depths - layers I am sure I didn’t peel off on the first read.
The lovers' room belongs to Momoko, a British-educated Japanese woman forced to return to Tokyo at the outbreak of war with her diplomat father. Her outward dignity and serenity belie the exhaustion she feels after four years of war, the devastation of her country and the loss of so many loved ones. When she meets Alan “Spin” Bowler she wants to believe that at last she has a chance for happiness. Spin is an Australian working as a translator in the British Army of Occupation and had briefly met Momoko before the war at a diplomatic reception in London. Consorting with the “enemy” is forbidden but they both find love and security in stolen moments in their secret hideaway until a jealous act of betrayal tears them apart and changes the course of their lives forever. Fast forward to 1973 and a chance encounter with an English student launches Spin, now a Professor in Melbourne, on a journey to discover what really happened that day and what might have become of Momoko.
A story of love, betrayal, guilt and survival, it is also an examination of truth and reality, illusion and self delusion; you are challenged throughout the book to examine what you are reading from this perspective and it is this which gives the book its edge and energy.
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The Last Town on Earth
Thomas Mullen
In 1918 a flu epidemic raged across the world killing over 50M people. The people of Commonwealth, a small mill town Washington State, vote to put themselves under quarantine in order to keep out the virus. Guards are posted on lookout duty to ensure that no-one leaves or enters. On day two, the guards are confronted with a moral dilemma. A soldier appears, begging for help. He is hungry, cold and tired. Should they admit him and put their families at risk or should they place their lives above his and let him die in the woods? The choices they make and their impact on the town as panic and conflict take hold is gripping stuff.
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Thursdays at Eight
Debbie Macomber
As I meet up with friends every Thursday evening at eight, I
bought this book on impulse and it was on my “to read” pile for
a while - but once I picked it up, I could not put it down. It
is unashamedly chick-lit, but the best of its kind, offering
four cleverly interwoven stories unfolding over breakfast every
Thursday at eight.
From page one you will be drawn into the stories of four very
different women: Clare has just been through a divorce and needs
to rethink her life; Elizabeth is in her fifties, widowed,
successful and is determined to live life to the full; Karen
wants to act but her appalling mother just wants her to be like
her equally appalling but very respectable sister; Julia finally
has time for herself and for her new business until she finds
out she is pregnant!
Strong and appealing characters, great pace and plotting and
some unexpected twists makes this a true page turner.
Debbie Macomber has an interesting and informative website:
www.debbiemacomber.com
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The
The Woman on the Bus
Pauline McLynn
Pauline McLynn was splendid as Mrs Doyle in
Father Ted, so I picked this up hoping she would be just as good
as an author. She is. The Woman on the Bus is wonderful – witty
and wise with a cracking storyline.
Who is the woman on the bus? She steps off the Dublin bus in
Kilbrody, makes straight for the bar and drinks herself into
oblivion. She wakes up, several days later, in Charlie Finn’s
bed to find the local garda and the whole village are talking
about her.
Pauline McLynn has peopled Kilbrody with wonderful characters;
you will see a lot of them through Ozzy “the anthropologist”
O’Reilly’s binoculars, meet the Whinge and the others in Finn’s
bar or at the bingo and the Deborah and the women in the Medical
Hall. At the same time, she has kept her central characters
strong and complex and her plotting tight. The Woman has an
interesting story to tell and so do Charlie and the wonderful
Cathy Long.
The question is will the Woman stay or will what sent her there
send her away again. This is a tale of loss and discovery told
without any sentimentality: “Sure you have to laugh”, says Ozzy
because if you didn’t you’d have to cry.
Save it for your next “duvet day” – it will be the perfect
therapy.
2004 |
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Mr Starlight
Laurie Graham
The perfect Christmas read – and if you are buying for someone who has not read Laurie Graham, wrap it up with The Future Homemakers of America.
2005 |
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Slick
Daniel Price
Very entertaining, very clever and very subtle comedy; media manipulation will never look the same again.
2005 |
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The
True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters
Elisabeth Robinson
Truly outstanding!
Tilt at windmills with Hollywood producer Olivia Hunt as she
writes to her sister, her ex-boss, Mel Gibson, Robin Williams,
John Cleese, Danny DeVito, her dad, her mom, her lover and many
more.
With the lightest of touches, she takes apart families, Hollywood,
the medical profession and even herself in an amazing tour de
force. Meet her as she is writing the fourth draft of her suicide
note and then follow her as she battles for her sister, her
movie and ultimately herself; Olivia Hunt is a heroine who will
make you laugh and cry in equal measure; like any good movie
this book will not let you go until the very last scene.
2005
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The
Tea House on Mulberry Street
Sharon Owens
There are some books whose
pages you have to turn more and more slowly as you near the end
because you don’t want to step out of the plot you’re
lost in. This is one of them. Mind you, when you do it is with
a sigh of satisfaction because everyone gets their just desserts
– and then there is a tasty little surprise waiting for
you on the back page.
Setting her story in Belfast, Ms Owens conjures up a sumptuous
cast of characters who will intrigue, exasperate and amuse you
in turn. If you have ever eaten your way through a crisis, written
ridiculous love letters, hated double glazing salesmen, gone looking
for an old boyfriend, wondered about the real lives of the old
biddies rattling the collecting tins or just wanted to be someone
else entirely, you’ll love every word of this superbly crafted
gem.
2005 |
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The
Ripple Effect
Dominic Holland
Middleton Edwardians could go to their
highest position in the league – EVER! - but they lose the
match despite an early two-nil lead. Bill goes straight from the
match to the cake factory night shift and ends up on the doughnut
line. PC Waddle has been waiting for Treat Day on his diet for
a long time – he’s going to have a jam doughnut. Bill
meanwhile has lost it; taking out his frustration on the doughnuts,
he leaves out the jam. PC Waddle sinks his teeth into his first
doughnut – no jam. He loses it and books Darryl and so starts
the ripple effect. Next time you are booked for 34 MPH in a 30
zone think on! Maybe the copper didn’t get his jam doughnut.
Dodgy deals, dodgy politicians and even dodgier lower league football
will keep you up very late; you’ll have to find out how
far the ripples will spread.
2004 |
Historical Fiction
Text Here
Other Great Stuff
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The Silver Spoon
The most successful cookbook in Italy; a classic and this year’s “must have”.
2005 |
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Preludes Airs and Yodels
A Penguin Café Primer
Penguin Café OrchestraFound this gem while looking for something else entirely. The Penguin Café are new to me – but not their music. You’ll recognise Telephone and Rubber Band from a well known advert and I’ve heard Music for a Found Harmonium a thousand times without knowing who it was by.
This is a wonderful compilation and a great introduction to PCO’s music, some tracks date back to 1976 but it includes a great 1996 ORB remix Pandaharmonium.
The PCO was the brainchild of the English composer and multi-instrumentalist Simon Jeffes (1949-1997). You can read more about this fascinating band on
www.penguincafe.com but the music speaks for itself. Listen to the tracks on Amazon.
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The
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
The punk band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes cover their favourite black artists.
‘Ain’t no Sunshine’ rocks, ‘I believe I can Fly’ and ‘Nothing Compares to U’ compete for best track, ‘Mona Lisa’ will make you smile.
Best album from these talented musicians with a rare sense of humour
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Click here to read more..
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